


Into the Holiday Spirit

by likecinnamoninoctober



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Advent Calendar, Christmas, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likecinnamoninoctober/pseuds/likecinnamoninoctober
Summary: The Doctor surprises Rose with an advent calendar full of Christmas themed activities they can do together.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

The Doctor grinned, holding the gift he’d promised her behind his back. “Ready?” he asked, then with her nod, swung the present around and held it out to her with two hands, as though he was presenting treasure to a queen.

“It’s…a cardboard advent calendar with all the panels already opened?” Rose said, staring at the offered gift. The box was squashed on one corner, and a lot of the image had torn away when he’d opened it. “Did you already eat all the chocolates?” She asked, eyeing him.

“Well…” He reached his hand around to scratch the back of his head. “I needed something to sustain me while I worked on the real present!”

“Which is?” Rose looked around the room for whatever her real present was.

“Go on,” he said. “Open the first day.”

Rose looked at him skeptically wondering what she would find inside. An empty chocolate wrapper? Peeling back the cardboard, she found a folded piece of paper stuck inside. She pulled it out and opened it up. _Decorate_ , it said. She held the paper up to him, hoping to gain some understanding on this gift he seemed so proud of.

He grinned proudly at himself. “You see, you said you miss all the activities leading up to Christmas, watching Christmas movies, making cookies. And how it’s hard to enjoy the Christmas season when we’re traveling through time. So I made this.” He pointed proudly at the crumbled box. “Each day has a specific holiday activity we can do together. So you can have a real Christmas!”

Rose looked back at the box, her eyes scanning over all the days, knowing each one represented something she could do with the Doctor. Something fun, something he’d planned just for her. She felt tears prick the back of her eyes.

“Doctor...” She swung her arms around him, pulling him into a hug. “I love it.”

-

“So the good news is, the Tardis has more Christmas decorations than you could ever want. The bad news, though, is I don’t know where any of it is.” The Doctor said.

Rose stared at the storage room before them. No, it was a warehouse, and was, as the Doctor had previously informed her, one of many. Nothing seemed organized in any fashion. It could take years to find what they needed. “Well, we better get started,” she said.

They looked through the mess for a few moments. Rose wandered around, her eyes skimming past piles of items: a stack of newspapers from Utah in the 1940s, an enormous chair covered with intricate carvings of animals, a bin full of copper gears.

She was just beginning to give up, say they could skip the activity for today, when she noticed some lights on the floor, flashing in sequence and moving away from her. She followed them, twisting through tunnels of debris. She had to move a chair aside, and inch past a puddle of something sticky and green.

The light stopped up ahead and when she approached it, she saw a pile of fairy lights. They’d been tangled up into a giant ball, but at least they had something to decorate with now. “Thank you,” she said to the Tardis.

“Doctor! I found something,” she yelled.

He appeared at the end of the aisle, if it could be called that, with an old tea cart. A box of shiny ornaments sat on top. “Splendid! Put it on the cart. Seems like the old girl is in the holiday spirit as well, she led me to these.”

More lights appeared on the floor and they followed, packing the cart until it could take no more, then pushed the cart back to the main area they called home when they were on the Tardis.

“You should decorate this room,” the Doctor said, piling decorations on their dining table. “I’ll do the entry area, so we can get see it every time we come back inside.”

“I thought we were going to decorate together,” Rose said. The together part was what she’d been looking forward to most.

The Doctor hefted a large bin onto the table. “I want to surprise you.”

-

Rose stepped into the center of the room and looked around. There were almost too many decorations up, but that was how she liked it. It was overwhelming. She smiled. Garlands hung on every object she could attach them to, using large velvet red bows. A little Christmas village was set up on a side table. She’d found two stockings and hung them up on a shelf.

Pleased with her attempts, she left to find the Doctor and see how he was doing. “Can I see yet?” She asked as she approached.

“Just a second!” He answered. She heard him run around the ramp and fiddle with something. “Okay. Come in.”

She gasped when she walked in. The whole room was covered in lights of all colors. They shone so bright it hurt her eyes. Snow fell lazily from the ceiling and disappeared before it hit the ground. Two glowing reindeer guarded the door. Every inch of the room glittered.

She loved it. She couldn’t wait until tomorrow, to find out what they next activity would be.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose held on tightly to the Doctor’s hand as they skated around the rink. She hadn’t skated in years, but thankfully, the skill had quickly come back to her. The Doctor was finding it all a bit more difficult, but he was giving it his best try.

They weren’t going fast, but Rose didn’t mind. The view was marvelous. A castle straight out of a fairy tale rose up from the snow to her right, the entire structure glowing from a thousand twinkling lights. Each turret had a faint covering of snow.

The Doctor navigated to the outer edge of the ice and halted clumsily near a bench. “I think it’s time for a snack, don’t you?”

Rose’s stomach grumbled in response. Quaint buildings surrounded the rest of the rink, — a little town down the hill from the castle. Nearer the rink, outside shops sold strudel and hot punch, churros and beignets. Foods from all over and many she’d never heard of before. The smell of all the fresh-baked sugary bread was almost overwhelming. “I don’t know what to try first, though,” she laughed.

She sat on the bench next to The Doctor to take her skates off. He was already sock-footed and looking in his bottomless pockets for where he’d stored their shoes. She looked off toward the shops wondering where they should go first when she saw the figure of a small child under a velvet red cape dash through a gap in the crowd. Rose froze. Something about the way the child had moved hadn’t looked right. Hadn’t looked…human.

“Doctor-“

“Aha!” He pulled out four shoes triumphantly, though none of them matched. He frowned at his find and started looking again. “Were you saying something?”

She scanned the crowd. She’d only seen the figure briefly, she was probably worried over nothing. Even if the child hadn’t been human, that was not uncommon by this point in earth’s future. Alien beings had become a normal part of life on earth, as evidenced by a nearby booth selling Balhoonian spiced crumb pops. Perhaps they should start there? Though, it was unlikely the shop would sell ones as good as they’d had on Balhoon itself.

“No,” she shook her head. “I was just wondering where we should go first.”

“I saw fried bananas near the entrance.” He looked at her like a child hoping to get a treat.

“Sounds good,” she said, clearing the figure from her mind.


End file.
